100 years of hard labour

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Bob Hawke was feisty, Paul Keating a little subdued and Gough Whitlam was just Gough. All were in Melbourne yesterday to celebrate what Opposition Leader Mark Latham called one of the "special moments" in Labor history.

The occasion was the 100th anniversary of the swearing-in of the world's first labour government. It was marked by not one but four events.

Bob Hawke was the star attraction at the first, the unveiling of a plaque at the Old Treasury Building in Spring Street, and he set about debunking "conservative myth-making" about which side of politics was better on national security and economic management.

"The fables John Howard has concocted about alleged conservative superiority over Labor in these matters make Aesop look like an amateur," he said.

Yes, he did make that mistake on interest rates, and he had apologised for it, he said. But Mr Hawke maintained that every independent economic commentator had recognised that Labor had laid the foundation for the "basic strength of the current Australian economy".

On national security, Mr Hawke drew his own parallel between Vietnam and Iraq, saying the conservatives took Australia into the Vietnam War on the basis of "lies" - and that Labor had been right to advocate the withdrawal of Australian troops. "The truth is this, my friends: no Australian prime minister has ever put this country at greater risk, and for the wrong reason, than John Howard with his lock-step performance with George Bush on Iraq."

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The next event was the launch of Ross McMullin's So Monstrous a Travesty,, the story of Chris Watson and the world's first labour government.

Paul Keating paid generous tribute to McMullin's capacity to "sharpen our understanding" of the time and the key figures in that short-lived government.

Labor's most recent prime minister delivered his own take on the political history of the past century, with a typically colourful repudiation of what he called the Menzian view that the working class were disqualified from being in charge. "Pigs to that!" he concluded.

McMullin saw two parallels with Watson's experience and present-day Labor. One was that Watson's main opponent was George Reid, a Sydney lawyer of conservative views, a free-trader who was prone to run scare campaigns and "played to and brought out the worst in Australians, rather than their best".

"Now, I think a present-day equivalent to Reid does spring to mind," Mr Keating said.

The other parallel was that Watson had felt compelled in his first speech to Parliament as prime minister to attack the idea that Labor was soft on national security and defence.

"So that furphy is 100 years old," he said.

The next event was a caucus meeting in Parliament House, the building where Watson's team met after being sworn in. Despite the old-fashioned appearance of the Watson ministry, Mr Latham described them as "change agents".

"Colleagues, the best way to celebrate the first labour government in 1904 is to work with all our might and determination for the election of an Australian Labor government in 2004," he told his troops.

And the second best way was to have a celebratory dinner, with Gough Whitlam among the special guests. And that was yesterday's fourth, and final, event.